Another travel with my college barkada, another opportunity to serve you with a detailed plan, budget, and itinerary of our recent lakwatsa.

As the pandemic deprived us from our Albay trip last year, we opt to give our own hometown a chance to be explored. For this year's travel, we (and by we, I mean, the backbones of the group chat) decided to do a Carnaza-Malapascua island hopping/beach trip.

It's not a travel post without me laying out all the costs of my trip.

Below is a summary of my expenses during our Carnaza-Malapascua trip.

It is also good to bear in mind that cost would almost always lessen if you're travelling with a group of more than 10 people. For this trip, this would ideally be good for 15 to 20 persons.

The budget/expenses presented below is more or less the amount for each person for a group of 10.

Click the photo for a better view

Now that we've got all the finances covered, let me take you on a trip with me thru laying down our 3 days, 2 nights itinerary.

Our trip started at around 3AM on a Friday morning at the North Bus Terminal. I also just recently learned that The North Bus Terminal has been moved to the area of the SM MyBus Terminal. From there, we rode a bus going to Tapilon Port. It is located at Daanbantayan, Cebu. We arrived at Tapilon port at around 6 in the morning.

Tip: It is always good to have a contact first for your bangka to have a much smoother travel. You may contact Sir Ady at 0927 530 1302. He was our bangkero during the trip.

We spent a good 8 hours (approximately) island hopping to the following islands:

1. La Manok Island
2. Maria Maria Island
3. Scull Cove

Ended our first day at Carnaza Island, where we rented a wooden tent and setup our own tents. Had a few lot of drinks at night. Yes, we bought our own alcohol, but just in case you forgot to buy some booze, there is also a mini store on the island.

Woke up on a rainy morning at around 6am to have breakfast with the squad. We cooked our own breakfast. And by we, I mean, just a few people on the trip who's assigned to do so. Honestly, I'm more of the admin/accountant/treasurer of the group 😂

At around 10am, we started our, for the lack of a lose term, "voyage" to Malapascua Island. Arrived there at around 12noon, just in time for lunch. But before we rushed to fill our stomachs, we checked in at our accommodation, Malapascua Budget Inn (set the link for you 😉)

After lunch, we headed straight to the North Beach and the Lighthouse.

We capped off our day with some great reggae music at Villa Sandra Veggie & Vegan Restaurant. And yes, you read it right! That IS a vegan place in Malapascua Island. Pretty cool, if you ask me. Food prices are super inexpensive, too.

Making the most out of our last day, we had another boat trip around the Malapascua Island.

These are the spots we went to:

1. Dakit Dakit
2. Japanese Sunken Ship
3. some cliff jumping spot (to which we no longer dared to do)

At around 2pm, we had a boat trip back to Cebu and landed at the Maya Port to which a van was waiting for us.

I wasn't really a big fan of the Carnaza Island. The tents were leaky. You see, we rented two wooden tents but, since it rained so hard at around 3am, the rainwater started going through one of our tents making that accommodation unusable for sleeping.

If you were to do the same trip that we had, it is best to stay at the Malapascua Budget Inn for 2 nights. Meaning, I recommend doing an entire day of island hopping, including Carnaza Island, and then go straight to Malapascua Island after. But that's just my two cents.

Superb accommodation with very accommodating staff. Front desk clerk was kind of cute too, but that's besides the point. The point is if you want a smooth and stress-free accommodation, I highly recommend Malapascua Budget Inn. It's cheap and quite safe.

It was okay, I guess. I just didn't think it was worth me trekking for 10 minutes. It was literally just a lighthouse with no other stuff whatsoever. We could've just paid 80php back and forth for a motorcycle trip to North Beach.

Finally, here's a short recap of our trip

I hope this was helpful for your next beach trip when you're in Cebu 😁

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